How to Live in the Federal Republic of Germany

    Leben – BRD

    • Harun Farocki
    • Germany
    • 1990
    • 83 min
    • Focus: The Future Tense

    The German film auteur Harun Farocki dissects “free” West German society in 32 scenes set in an educational context: How to bear a child; how to cross the street; how to conduct a difficult conversation, how to strip, how to reanimate someone. These scenes spanning all of life—from birth to death—form an antithesis to the idea that life is what happens while you’re making other plans. Instead, every situation can be planned for and rehearsed.

    The fact that this documentary was released the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall made it a devastatingly ironic introduction to West Germany, where the mechanization and detailed recording of the human body eerily echoed the blanket surveillance of East Germany.

    The way these 32 scenes are juxtaposed evokes tantalizing interconnections that transcend the specific context of the film; intercut shots of washing machines and car doors being subjected to stress tests venture into the absurd in questioning the notion of the autonomous individual.

    Credits

    • 83 min
    • color
    • DCP
    • Spoken languages: German
    • Subtitles in: English
    Director
    Harun Farocki
    Production
    Harun Farocki for Harun Farocki Filmproduktion
    Cinematography
    Ingo Kratisch
    Editing
    Rosa Mercedes, Irina Hoppe
    Sound
    Klaus Klingler

    IDFA history

    2021
    Screened
    Focus: The Future Tense

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    IDFA history

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